Adams Papers Digital Edition

Dr. Elisha Savil (this name is variously spelled in contemporary records) and his wife, the former Ann Adams, a niece by blood of both of JA’s parents. At this time the Savils rented the more southerly of the two cottages on Deacon John Adams’ farm at the foot of Penn’s Hill in the North Precinct of Braintree. The cottages were separated by only a cartway; on the northern side was the home of JA’s parents, now known as the John Adams Birthplace; and on the southern, the home of JA and AA after their marriage in 1764, now known as the John Quincy Adams Birthplace. Owned by descendants of the two Presidents until 1940, when they were presented to the City of Quincy, the Birthplaces (at 129 and 131 Franklin Street) are open to the public under the care of the Quincy Historical Society. See HA2, The Birthplaces of Presidents John and John Quincy Adams, Quincy, 1936 (repr. from Old-Time New England, 26:79–99 [Jan. 1936]); and Quincy Historical Society, A Brief Story of the Birthplaces of the Presidents John and John Quincy Adams, Quincy, Mass., Quincy, 1954. While the present volume was in press the Quincy Historical Society published The President John Adams and the President John Quincy Adams Birthplaces, by Waldo C. Sprague, Quincy, 1959, much the fullest historical and descriptive account of these houses yet written.